Modern computing systems such as smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices enable users to install and run various applications. Some applications may be configured with analytics engines that are called during the operation of the device. For example, the main program code of a mobile application may be configured to send function calls to an analytics module to collect and process analytics data about how the device is operated.
In the fields of computer hardware and software technology, it is possible in various runtime environments to modify how a method, function, class, or other such software component maps to the actual code implementation of the component. Sometimes referred to as swizzling, such re-mapping technology allows code associated with one function to be replaced by code associated with another function. This may be useful in the context of making modifications to a user interface, for example.
Some implementations of re-mapping technology involve modifying the value of a pointer that points to a location in memory where a method is implemented in code. By changing the value of the pointer, the method can be made to point to other code such that, when the method is called, a different method is employed in its place. The target method that is called in place of the original method is sometimes referred to as a callback function.